Monday, January 12, 2015

3301-01-12: Pilgrimage to Sol

I've been running some missions for the Federation, and their agents have seen fit to grant me the rank of Midshipman and a permit to visit Sol -- the ancestral home of humanity and capital system of the Federation. It's not far from Altair -- only 16.7 light-years away.

I jump in, and the obvious first place to view is Earth. I'm amused that my ship's scanner informs me that Earth is an "Earth-Like World". Australia, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean were in the sunlight. Earth has three stations orbiting it: the Abraham Lincoln, the Li Qing Jao, and the M. Gorbachev; the Moon also has a station, Galileo.

Mars was terraformed long ago and is now an "Earth-Like World" as well -- blue and watery, unlike the red rusty-iron look it was known for in the days before terraforming. There's a Mars High Orbiter there, and other stations or platforms around Mercury, Venus, Jupiter's moon Io, and Saturn's moon Titan.

There's also a Federal capital ship orbiting Sol: the Farragut-class battlecruiser FNS Angelos.

But I spent the most time studying the stars. The constellations of Earth's night sky are visible here too, if you know where to look -- I was able to find the Big Dipper, Lyra, Orion, and Cassiopeia based on what I remembered from studying old Earth sky maps. And by using my ship's galaxy map to point myself back at Altair, I could pick out its constellation Aquarius as well.

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